Another week with all sleepers sold out on the LSL

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neroden

Engineer
Joined
Feb 23, 2014
Messages
9,548
Location
Ithaca, NY
So I went to book a trip in early June (I'm not looking forward to the trip, but at least the *travel* will be pleasant) and found that all that was left was one bedroom. My schedule was flexible, so I tried the next day and the day after but they had *no* sleepers left. So I took the last bedroom and contributed to the sold-out sleeper status.

This train needs more sleeping cars and it needs them two years ago.
 
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Amtrak's car inventory isn't helping increase revenue. There are VL Sleepers on order, but the VL Dining Cars haven't been delivered, so the Baggage Dorms can be started, then the VL Sleeoers can be started. With a trickle in flow out the pipe, it could be years before Amtrak sees new sleepers.
 
Wonder if Amtrak is being billed all the extra labor costs? If so, it doesn't matter to CAF how long it takes to build a car.
CAF is loosing money on the Viewliners at this point. They've agreed to build so many cars by a certain date for a certain amount. It'd be like a restaurant taking a long time to get you your meal, they're not going to come out and say "Your fried catfish is taking a while to cook, so we're going to charge you an extra $15.00." If anything they'll comp your meal or give you a free dessert. I haven't been keeping up on the details of the Amtrak contract, but if anything Amtrak might be levying fees (think discounts) onto CAF for being late.

That all being said Amtrak is paying some out of pocket from my understanding to get the Viewliners out the door, but not to CAF. Essentially they're taking the Viewliners in a almost done state & finishing some little bits themselves.

peter
 
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